Changes are made to the Rice curriculum. Students must now take classes from humanities, social sciences, and science/math, following what is referred to as "unrestricted distribution."

1970

The first performance of Baker Shakespeare is produced.

1970

Valhalla, the Graduate Student Association pub, opens.

1970

Jake Hess Tennis Stadium, named in honor of a Rice tennis champion, is built.

1970

Chemist Norman Hackerman, former president of the University of Texas at Austin, is inaugurated as the fourth president of Rice. He comes to a university that has just completed its most expansive 25 years, and he sees as his main obligation the need to balance programs with means. He is most concerned with restructuring the administration to address the needs of a larger, more complex, more research 0oriented university. The Development Office begins its work in earnest.

1970

The last official Rondelet queen is elected.

1971

President Lyndon B Johnson speaks at the dedication of Sid Richardson College, and Sewall Hall is completed.

1971

The Institute for the Arts and the Rice Media Center occupy two large temporary buildings.

The Office of Advanced Studies and Research is organized to coordinate the graduate division, research administration, major research proposals, and continuing studies.

1972

The English department begins giving a freshman competency exam.

1973

Baker and Hanszen become the first colleges to go coed; within 15 years, all others will follow suit.

1974

The Superbowl is played in Rice Stadium on January 13. Miami is victorious over Minnesota, 24-7.

1974

Baker 13, an anonymous Rice "social" club in which streakers garbed only in shaving cream run around campus, makes its first appearance.

1974

The Shepherd School of Music is founded. The establishing donation comes from Sallie Shepherd Perkins, and the school is named for her grandfather, Benjamin A. Shepherd, a prominent Houston banker who passed his love of music on to his grandchildren.

1974

The Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Administration (later Jones School of Management) is founded with a gift from Houston Endowment, Inc. and is named in honor of the founder of Houston Endowment, Inc.

1975

Willy's Pub opens.

1975

The Science and Engineering division is divided into the George R. Brown School of Engineering and the School of Natural Science (to be renamed Wiess School of Natural Sciences in 1979).

1975

The Shepherd School of Music holds an inaugural festival in September.

1976

The U.S. Patents and Trademarks Office names Fondren Library an official patent depository, the first in Texas and one of only 25 in the country.

1976

Dave Roberts '73 wins an Olympic bronze medal in the pole vault at the 1976 Montreal games by vaulting 18'.5".

1976

The Brown Challenge, a fund-raising program designed to encourage annual gifts, is launched . It is one of the most significant decisions ever made on behalf of the university, and by the time it ends in 1995, it will have brought the total of Brown Foundation gifts during the period to more than $50 million. At the same time, the Brown Foundation matching money attracts additional tens of millions of dollars from individual donors.

1978

The Rice Engineering Design and Development Institute opens.

1978

Physicist Robert W. Wilson '57, who helped prove the Big Bang theory of cosmic origins by discovering the background radiation in the universe, becomes the first alumnus to win a Nobel Prize.

1979

Fondren Library catalogues its one millionth volume.

1979

The Rice Quantum Institute, composed of chemists, physicists, and engineers, is founded. It is Rice's first interdisciplinary research center, a concept that will become integral to Rice University in the decades to come. Transcending traditional boundaries between disciplines, departments, and even divisions, interdisciplinary programs bring research and ideas from widely divergent fields to bear on scientific, technical, social, and cultural problems that cannot easily be solved by single approach.

1979

The Student Senate Association urges Rice to drop requirements that two-thirds of entering classes must be from Texas. Although the policy derives from Rice's charter, the policy is slowly and quietly abandoned. By the mid-1980s, more than half of the students will be from outside Texas.